Women should be permitted to purchase oral contraceptives over the counter, says Louisiana GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal.
While that position puts him at odds with some social conservatives, “contraception is a personal matter,” the potential presidential candidate writes in
The Wall Street Journal.
“The government shouldn't be in the business of banning it or requiring a woman's employer to keep tabs on her use of it. If an insurance company or those purchasing insurance want to cover birth control, they should be free to do so. If a consumer wants to buy birth control on her own, she should be free to do so.”
A Republican stance against free access to birth control merely gives Democrats a political weapon, Jindal says. “As a conservative Republican, I believe that we have been stupid to let the Democrats demagogue the contraceptives issue and pretend, during debates about health-care insurance, that Republicans are somehow against birth control.”
While every adult should be able to purchase contraception, “anyone who has a religious objection . . . should not be forced by government healthcare edicts to purchase it for others,” he writes. “And parents who believe, as I do, that their teenage children shouldn't be involved with sex at all do not deserve ridicule.”
Jindal, who notes that he’s pro-life, says the healthcare reform law actually makes it more difficult to buy non-prescription contraceptives. That’s because it prohibits people from using their Health Savings Accounts to purchase over-the-counter medicine. “Health Savings Accounts should cover over-the-counter purchases, and those should include contraception,” he says.
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